Useful Nave Turquoise

Latin ūsus, use — adjectival suffix -ful. As a color modifier, useful implies a clear-and-purpose-serving quality where the hue carries the visual register of helpful-and-supporting design-element. Sits at the crisp-and-functional end of the grid, parallel to practical and serviceable in usage.

Latin navis, ship. As a color modifier, nave implies a long-cathedral-central-aisle quality, the visual register of Romanesque-and-Gothic-cathedral hand-built central-aisle nave-and-clerestory-and-vault architectural surfaces under Gothic-and-Romanesque clerestory-and-stained-glass light. Sits at the modifier-and-architecture end of the grid, parallel to apse and aisle in usage.

The hydrated copper-aluminum phosphate mined in Persia and the American Southwest for thousands of years — the firuze of Iran, the chalchihuitl of Mesoamerica, the heart of Pueblo and Navajo silverwork. The color refers to a fine Sleeping Beauty turquoise from Arizona: a saturated, slightly green-shifted blue with the slight matrix of host-rock veining. Brighter than persian, lighter than cerulean.